So that’s an example of intelligent design– hurling down fire balls from the heavens, scorching the planet to cause a mass extinction event, for what?

The only way that this argument makes sense is if one buys into the “mass extinction events do it” twist on RM+NS. Life is not created by mass extinction events. Life is created by someone even smarter than me.

Karen:
So that’s an example of intelligent design– hurling down fire balls from the heavens, scorching the planet to cause a mass extinction event, for what?

No.

Any questions?

It is this class of argument, the “this is a pattern that informs, but defies random generation” that feels like a “signature of the designer”. If there’s a copyright notice in there, its because it is someone’s intellectual property.

So that’s an example of intelligent design– hurling down fire balls from the heavens, scorching the planet to cause a mass extinction event, for what? Just to make room for humans? I don’t see inflicting suffering on any animal as lucky for us, even if the animal is aggressive. Why not put the dinos down humanely? Or better yet, why not use some foresight and not let the dinos get so big, widespread, and dangerous in the first place? Isn’t foresight part of intelligence?

That should be the title of the essay… (Al Gore talks about scientists feeling pressure for saying something about global warming)

I’d add a second positive case for ID: signature data in the form of phi (the golden ratio.) This remarkable constant is “programmed” into not only mathematics (the fibbonacci sequence), but the universe (spirals of galaxies), the optimum angle for the dive of a hawk, the ratio of your hand to your forearm, the ratio of your first finger bone to the next, the spiral in a nautilus shell, the core of an apple (with its pntagram pattern), the ratio of DNA turn length to width, our aesthetic instinct (see its use in art and music), hurricane spirals, and many other places in nature. I’d venture to say that there isn’t an aspect of the created world that wasn’t marked with this “signature” information.

A ratio works best as a signature, since it can be encoded into any information bearing structure and is unit independent. It is also not “superficial”, thus being resistant to dyteleological effects like random mutation. To me, it is a perfect copyright, even stronger than nested hierarchy patterns. It ties together Cosmological ID and Biological ID quite nicely as well.

>>It smacks of the kind of patterns that are being sought by SETI research.

What would be the next step in SETI research?

In any event, I don’t see how “far too much precision to be accounted for by RM+NS” amounts to a positive case. You may not accept the validity of the anti-dualism argument against ID (the argument that even complete refutation of Darwin does not establish ID, because it does not foreclose a third explanation), but how is your example any different from any other in this regard?

Can intelligent design theory go beyond establishing the inadequacy of Darwinian theory? In other words, after showing what is not responsible for the complexity of life, can it show what is?

This is a very valid question. I see the predominance of ID evidence to be meerly evidence against the RM+NS hypothesis. In the absense of a positive case for ID, I actually am very comfortable with a science that simply responds by saying that RM+NS is seriously challenged, and that there are no other scientific explanations.

I believe, however, that there is one positive case for ID. If you read Denton’s discussion of the cytochrome C gene in “Evolution, a Theory in Crisis” you will see that the cytochrome C renders a map of the phylogenic tree with far too much precision to be accounted for by RM+NS. This map looks to me far to much like a “copyright notice” to be ignored. It smacks of the kind of patterns that are being sought by SETI research.